If you're the type of person who relies on mysterious-sounding locations of stars to determine your personality and outcome in life, get ready to be shocked.
The field of astrology, which is concerned with horoscopes and the like, felt a major disruption from astronomers, who are concerned with actual stars and planets. The astronomers from the Minnesota Planetarium Society found that because of the moon's gravitational pull on Earth, the alignment of the stars was pushed by about a month.
"When [astrologers] say that the sun is in Pisces, it's really not in Pisces," noted Parke Kunkle, a member of the group's board. Your astrological sign is determined by the position of the sun on the day you were born, so that means everything you thought you knew about your horoscope is wrong.
It turns out that astrology has had issues from its inception. (Aside from the fact that it tries to link personality traits with positions of the stars.) Ancient Babylonians had 13 constellations, but wanted only 12, so threw out Ophuchicus, the snake holder. Libra didn't even enter the picture until the era of Julius Caesar.
According to the Minnesota Planetarium Society, here is where the real signs of the Zodiac should fall. Get ready for your world to change forever. Capricorn: Jan. 20-Feb. 16. Aquarius: Feb. 16-March 11. Pisces: March 11-April 18. Aries: April 18-May 13. Taurus: May 13-June 21. Gemini: June 21-July 20. Cancer: July 20-Aug. 10. Leo: Aug. 10-Sept. 16. Virgo: Sept. 16-Oct. 30. Libra: Oct. 30-Nov. 23. Scorpio: Nov. 23-29. Ophiuchus: Nov. 29-Dec. 17. (Yep, this one is new — read all about the Ophiuchus way of life here) Sagittarius: Dec. 17-Jan. 20.
Thelma Golden has become a driving force in the art world. Since disrupting the status quo with her 1994 exhibition, Black Male: Representations of Masculinity in Contemporary American Art, Golden has continued to create challenging dialogues around art and artists, making her one of the most respected curators in America. After ten years at the Whitney Museum of American Art, one of the nation's premier art institutions, Golden took up a new challenge in 2000, joining the Studio Museum in Harlem and becoming executive director and chief curator in 2005.
Just because you missed that awesome conference, doesn’t mean that you can’t still watch the lectures! This weekend, we feature Thelma Golden, curator at the Studio Museum in Harlem, talk at TED about three recent exhibitions that explore how art examines and redefines culture.
More about Thelma Golden
Fascinated by Museums as a Child
Thelma Golden knew she wanted to be a museum curator since late childhood and early adolescence. Born in 1965, she grew up in Queens, New York. As a child Golden first developed a love for art by studying reproductions of works from the Art Institute of Chicago's permanent collection. Golden found the prints on the playing cards for the board game, Masterpiece—despite her lack of interest in the game itself. She also became fascinated in museums themselves. "I think I, in going to museums as a young child, really realized that someone did that—I didn't have a name for it, but it was clear that somebody put those things up, somewhere," she recalled for Diane Haithman of the Los Angeles Times. "As soon as it became clear to me what that job was, that was the job I wanted." Indeed, Golden discovered the role of a curator when she was 12. She read about the pioneering African-American woman curator, Lowery Sims, of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Golden found her inspiration.
Golden's career began early and developed quickly. By her senior year in high school, Golden had begun training as a curatorial apprentice at the Metropolitan Museum. Soon she would attend Smith College in North Hampton, Massachusetts, where in 1987 she graduated with a degree in art history. One year as a curatorial intern at the Studio Museum in Harlem followed, and another as an assistant at the Whitney. Until 1991, Golden gained experience as visual arts director at the Jamaica Arts Center in New York, where she curated eight shows. After taking a position at the Whitney in 1991, Golden began to rise to national prominence in the art world.
Earned National Reputation
As the Whitney's branch director at Philip Morris from 1991 to 1993, Golden opened up the museum to previously under-represented artists—women, people of color—and gained a national reputation. At the Philip Morris branch Golden exhibited a number of artists, including Glenn Ligon, Suzanne McClelland, Gary Simmons, Y. David Chung, Alison Saar, and Judith Shea. Also, Golden explored more physical aspects of organizing an exhibition, as when she organized a showing of drape paintings, Golden Element Inside Gold, by Sam Gilliam in the Sculpture Court. Gilliam's works were among those representing the United States at the Venice Biennale in 1972 and have been part of the permanent collection of The Art Institute of Chicago, The Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and the National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, DC.
Meanwhile, Golden stepped out of New York City to spread her artistic message. In 1993 at the Columbus Museum of Art in Columbus, Ohio, for example, she delivered a lecture and slide presentation entitled "African-American Art: Myth and Reality" in which she examined social protest and black life and culture in twentieth-century art by African Americans. The ColumbusCall and Post advertised that her address would bring "new insights" to viewers of a concurrent exhibition of the works of a Columbus African American artist, Roman Johnson.
Golden affected her main impact in the U.S. art world during the 1990s through the Whitney, however. After a promotion in 1992 to associate curator, in 1993 Golden contributed to the design of a major event in the U.S. art world, the Whitney Biennial, a tradition which dates back to the Whitney's founding by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney when the philanthropist hoped to introduce the work of emerging U.S. artists into an art world dominated by European modernists. On a team led by the curator Elisabeth Sussman, Golden was one of four curators of the 1993 exhibition.
The 1993 Whitney Biennial combined video, performance art, photography, documentary material, text, objects, artifacts, and painting to challenge the viewer on controversial social issues. An investigation of race, gender, sexuality, AIDS, and gay rights, the show included direct social and political statements. "If, as it would seem, the purpose of this Biennial was to take the pulse of America, its vision is of a nation mired in racial, ethnic and sexual conflict, still reeling from the L.A. riots and the Clarence Thomas hearings and deeply ambivalent about 'difference' at the same time that the fact of social diversity becomes ever more inescapable," commented Eleanor Heartney, art critic, in Art in America. Reversing past practice at the Whitney, the vast majority of the 87 artists participating in the 1993 Biennial were women, African Americans, Asian Americans, Latinos, and gays.
The Biennial's aggressive social and artistic tack elicited substantial debate. Newsweek's art critic, Peter Plagens, derided the 1993 Biennial as "more a dyspeptically sad show than a radically feisty one. It's a melange of social complaints that sometimes takes on the tone of the New York Post edited by the Guerrilla Girls," a group of feminist art activists who protested the 1987 Biennial for racial and sexual exclusion. Quoted in Ms., the Guerrilla Girls praised the 1993 Biennial: "It's a show everyone likes to hate because it's a comment on our times…. [It] seems like this show is polarizing the aesthetes from people who see art as an expression of a certain time and a certain place." As one of four curators designing the prestigious Biennial, Golden played a central role in placing the Whitney at the center of this debate in 1993.
Sparked Controversy
Consistent with the bold approach at the Whitney Museum of American Art in the 1990s, Golden sparked national controversy in 1994 and 1995 with an exhibition she curated herself, entitled Black Male: Representations of Masculinity in Contemporary American Art. Works by 29 artists chosen by Golden to illustrate current conceptions of black masculinity spread across the second and third floors of the Whitney. The artists were black men, such as Gary Simmons, Glenn Ligon, and Lyle Ashton Harris; black women, such as Adrian Piper, Lorna Simpson, Carrie Mae Weems, and Renee Cox; and a few Asian, Hispanic, and white artists to provide a multitude of perspectives. The exhibition also incorporated film, video, and media and was accompanied by an extensive catalogue.
NASA has taken the wraps off three concept designs for quiet, energy efficient aircraft that could potentially be ready to fly as soon as 2025, joining these planes of the future (and these). The designs come from Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and The Boeing Company. In the final months of 2010, each of these companies won a contract from NASA to research and test their concepts during 2011.
According to NASA: "[E]ach design has to fly up to 85 percent of the speed of sound; cover a range of approximately 7,000 miles; and carry between 50,000 and 100,000 pounds of payload, either passengers or cargo. For the rest of this year, each team will be exploring, testing, simulating, keeping and discarding innovations and technologies to make their design a winner."
Apparently, NASA is aiming to develop a line of super-planes that larger, faster, quieter, and that burn fuel slower and cleaner than their present counterparts.
Brand r - brings you the new music video from one of the biggest collaborations from the 031, Durban hip hop acts by Abdus, Black Moss and Siyamatic.
ENJOY
This particular post is a few months overdue, we finally did it though, so chill.
Imagine your high school teacher coming at you shouting ''Celebrate Originality!''. Well, since he/ she didn't, we are telling you to!
We attended the Adidas party mid 2010, it was awesome, didn't think it would sweep the whole world and last this loooonnngg. But it has, so it's only fair we play our part and give you what's to follow.
Whatever you do, just ensure you ‘’CELEBRATE ORIGINALITY’’ with Adidas. Our adoration and respect goes out to Adi (Adolph) Dassler for bringing us the three strikes.
For justa second, lets jog down memory lane and we reminisce of Stan Smiths, Shelltoes AKA Superstar, Jeremy Scott, Vespa edition, ZX’s, Torsion Sleek, Conductor and Attitude Hi’s.
It’s 2010/ 2011 and the Adidas team is hard at work celebrating their 60th Anniversary.
